The Villainy You Teach Me
by CarnavalNoir
Summary: The story of Zep Hindle and his interesting friend.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : I don't own any of the places or characters. They are property of Leigh Whannell and James Wan, as well as anything belonging to the _Saw_ movieverse.

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Usually, when they heard the bad news, they just couldn't handle it. Most of them had been expecting it, preparing for it, gathering their last remnants of dignity in order not to break when the fatal word fell from Dr Gordon's lips. But they couldn't cope. Couldn't keep their faces straight. "Cancer", the doctor said, without a trace of compassion, and the fear distorted their features, filled their eyes with tears.

The women would cry a little, sometimes sob in his arms for a while – Zep didn't mind much, it was part of the job – and then they would get up and walk away, thinking of their husbands and children and all the people they had to remain strong and alive for.

The men, most of the time... The men would get very stiff, very silent. But eventually they would let it go as well. Watching them, you could see the tension, the violence, the rage. They were angry at their own fear, angry at their weakness, angry at the failure that the disease represented. Angry at the pity they knew would drive them to hate those who loved them the most. Angry at the counterperformance – cancer. Cancer. A tumor. A little bundle of cells that refused to understand they were supposed to die.

It was all such a waste.

Zep watched them, comforted them, wiped their tears and their blood and their bodily secretions, helped them back up when they fell, supported them, covered up their dead faces with immaculate sheets. All day long. No surprises. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually felt something more powerful, more significant than the usual vague, weary pity.

And then John.

John had received the news with a straight face, but Zep knew better – why would the man be any different? He would break eventually. The doctor had offered John his sweet-sad-"I'm sorry" smile, calculated and designed for the circumstance, and had left Zep alone with the dirty work as usual.

John was certainly used to disease, Zep thought. For over ten years, his file said, he had been fighting against cancer – but now it had reached his brain, and he was going to die. He had certainly placed much faith and hope in his last chemotherapy. It had failed. John had asked Dr Gordon for a precise prognosis about the amount of time he had left – six to eight months, a year at best.

The doctor's cold, blue stare stood in ridiculous contradiction with his smile. The smile was a facial reflex. Usually, the patients pretended not to see that. They were already discovering denial, clinging to any trace of support they could find, even when it was so blatantly fake. But Zep had seen something like icy hatred burning in John's eyes when Dr Gordon had given him the smile. John knew, and faced the truth. Zep had been intrigued. But now the doctor was gone, and he was waiting for the usual – violence or tears.

Or both.

He slowly walked towards John, who was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed.

"Is there anything you need?"

The protocol question. John looked up. His eyes were so pale. His skin, too. Everything in him was cold and still. And yet he looked more alive than any patient Zep could remember.

"No, thank you."

They all answered that, but usually their voice would break at that point. John's tone had been polite and elegant, perfectly balanced, as if he'd been declining a waiter's offer in the middle of a fancy cocktail party.

Zep had turned to leave, trying to let the surprise sink in. A different reaction. An interesting patient.

"On reflection..."

John's voice was rich and deep, still so steady – Zep felt something stir within himself, something like fascination. Already.

"...I would like a glass of water, please - and the X-rays of my brain tumor, if the doctor would be so kind as to let me see them."

"I will bring you some water, but I'm afraid you won't be able to see the X-rays without Dr Gordon's consent."

"And are there any chances that you could obtain his consent for me?"

John gave Zep a polite smile.

"I... I'll ask him."

"Thank you very much..." A pause. John's cold eyes were fixed on Zep's nametag. "Mr Hindle."

_Call me Zep. Everyone does._

No. The words wouldn't come out ; there was no point in trying. Zep turned to leave for the second time, but something stopped him.

"You... Are you sure everything is all right?" he asked, turning back.

John eyed him. His smile was gone.

"I was just told that I had less than a year left to live, and that the decade of painful, straining treatments against my cancer had been utterly useless. I am not what you would call _all right_, no. But if what you meant to ask me was whether I was planning to burst into tears or destroy the hospital's equipment in a fit of rage, the answer is no – I will try to control myself."

Zep nodded with some hesitation.

"I'm sorry...," he began, like a scolded little boy. He had no idea what he was saying or why. John kept catching him offguard.

"Please don't be," John interrupted him. They exchanged a look that would have seemed strange to any exterior observer – Zep stared down at John with timid interest, lips slightly parted, while John merely mirrored his gaze, calmly, his face an unreadable mask.

"I hate to sound rude," John said at last, "but could I please get a glass of water?"


	2. Chapter 2

Zep walked home that night instead of taking the bus. It was dark already, and the faint, orange lights of the streets soothed him. He was concentrating on not thinking about the new patient. There was something intriguing about his politeness, about the cool-blooded elegance in every word, every gesture he made. A sort of...

His apartment was empty. No human presence, no pet, no plants. Almost no furniture – a bed, a desk, a computer, a plethora of books. Human psychology. Sociology. Anatomy. Some theology, too.

Zep stood for Zephaniah – an ultimate heritage from his baptist family. Mass every single day, and the weight of guilt on every move, every thought. Curiosity was a sin. No room of one's own for any of the children – seven brothers and sisters. Zep was the fourth. Some of them were dead now. Some were married, or had been. One was a single mother somewhere in California – hated and cursed by the old parents. One had been committed at age fourteen after a dark, secret event no-one ever mentioned. Zep hadn't seen him in many years.

He loved the emptiness of his narrow apartment. He loved every inch of free space, every second of blissful silence. He wasn't a misanthrope. He had sympathy, and even compassion, for most people. He just didn't like talking to them too much. He enjoyed his part at the hospital – the silent comforter, the listener. He caught himself hoping people found him mysterious, an intriguing loner. But sometimes he heard them whispering. _So kind, so kind... But so strange._

After all, he didn't really care what they said.

_(He got to watch them die in the end.)_

It was only that he liked to observe. Watch people's reaction when they learned they were about to die. Watch Dr Gordon's grotesque hypocrisy. Watch the look in the patients' eyes as they felt themselves slip from one side of death to the other. He usually felt a tingle of shame at the scientific, dispassionate way in which he noted the details in people's words, attitudes, gestures and expressions – like a naturalist of some sorts.

But shame was a distant factor, a childhood memory. He'd had years and years of practice in pushing it away, far away, to the back of his mind. In fact, he often found himself consciously neglecting the mandatory display of christian charity and compassion – and enjoying it. He liked being more powerful than them. All those poor, condemned souls. He liked being the one who held them. The one who guided them. The one who knew.

He liked showing his power to them in subtle ways. Looks. Deeds. Allusions. And of course, he always opened wide, vague, innocent eyes so that they would assume he hadn't done anything on purpose. Sometimes he would even let them believe he was "simple-minded".

But they depended on him. They were dying, they were condemned, and _he_ had the key to their last remnants of dignity, to the stopping of their pain, to the psychological support that they needed so much, and that no doctor would ever provide them with.

He held them all in the hollow of his hand.


End file.
